1^- 









Hollinger 

pH8.5 

Mill Run F3-1719 



UN 61 


.113 


Copy 1 



//£ 



THE END 



OP THE 



MISERABLE WORLD. 



i 




'OS 



//3 



A FEW WORDS. 

qj — 

What is this book ? will it be asked. The end of the 
miserable world ! 

Yes ! it is the end of the miserable world!... if the 
People will understand, open their eyes and look down 
on their wretchedness, on the abuses they have always 
suffered; if they will apply the remedy for their evils, 
— evil3 which desolate society, — regenerate the world, 
and give it new life. 

Evil, — that is to say, misery, slavery, the prostitution 
of the body and that of intelligence, — all these plagues 
have attained their highest degree. There is not the 
smallest piece of land but where we can hear cries of 
despair, — not a nation that is not engaged in war, — 
not one single being enjoying true happiness. 

Man and woman, face to face with misery and want, 
can but choose between dishonor or suicide. 

Thief, Jesuit, spy, prostitute or slave, are reluctant 
words; nevertheless, man and woman have no other 
alternative left in the presence of the terrible exigen- 
cies of life. 

Society admits him as honest who, having but little 
or no conscience at all, speculates on his fellowman, 
making him produce all the riches. He is therefore 
honest, according to the manners or morals of society. 
So, then, proud and calm, with one hand on his con- 
science and holding the Code in the other, he can say : 
11 1 have earned my fortune at the sweat of my brow ! n 

What shall you oppose to this red-hot iron logic ap- 
plied to your sores, herculean People i 



You are depressed, speechless, and without tribune 
to plead your cause: you witness the happiness and en- 
joyments of others, and you fall exhausted by fatigue 
under the weight of your chains. 

Will it always be so ? 

Conscience and good sense reply : No ! 

This book is not a work of hatred nor of envy ; it is 
all of love and pity for those who suffer and struggle 
under the vices of our corrupt society. 

This book is an idea, a pacific, honest means; a con- 
spiration in the full light of the sun to stop those tears, 
those shames, those miseries, those suicides, those at- 
tempts against property and life, which every day be- 
come more and more frightful, and fatally strike on the 
unfortunate. 

All of you, who are not of the People, — who pretend 
to be men of genius and science, and talk of Charity, 
Fraternity, and even of Liberty and Emancipation, — 
read this book, and make common cause with the 
People; listen to their sufferings, their despair; com- 
fort them ; and then, but then only, shall we have faith 
in your Christian words. 

But no, People, do not entertain this hope. It is not 
sounding words which are required, but acts! Rely 
on yourselves to conquer your rights. When your 
enemies shall see that you are serious, strong and 
united, they will make themselves small and humble to 
come up to you. 

J. F. MAS. 



New York, February, 1864. 



THE END 



OF THE 



MISERABLE WORLD. 



I die at the moment when the 
scene is becoming interesting : a 
few years hence the genius of 
man shall have renewed the 
world..,.. Could I but take a 
countermark, and, mere spec- 
tator of things, live through cu- 
riosity ! (Gay-Lu^sacJ 



It is a very old story, that of the end of the world. 

The lightning and thunder, the inundations, the 
drought, the earthquakes, all the great cataclysms have 
been a rich subject for the priests and Jesuits of all 
countries to predict the end of the world. The remotest 
date we can recollect of in history is the year 999. 

At the last hour of said year 999 , the terrestrial 
globe, according to our evil prophets, was to disappear 
like a nutmeg in the hands of a juggler, and all human 
beings to die instantly, and their soul appear before an 
old white-bearded man whom they call God. who would 
judge the ones good for Heaven, the others for Hell and 
Purgatory, three things which the priests and Jesuits 
skilfully turn to good account in frightening the cre- 
dulous and weak-minded people. 

Nevertheless, the globe still revolves. 

Those predictions were throwing perturbation and 
desolation throughout the entire world, while the hypo- 
critical devotees beningly reaped the earthly treasures 
from the horrified populations. 



-6- 

Excommunication, anathema, the Inquisition, turned 
the people into a mass of ignorant, stupid and tremb- 
ling beings. 

Guttemberg appears, and the reign of the priest van- 
ishes as fast as light shines over the world. 

The lords, masters of the soil and men, abused ot 
their powers to such an extent, that, when '89 broke 
out, the world was shaken as if by an earthquake 

That great revolution causes others to rise, which 
create a new lord, the bourgeois. This new master, with 
the support of the army and the priests, the gendarmes, 
the police, the jailors, the judges and consorts, maintains 
the people in slavery and stupidity. While extolling 
progress, liberalism, he is himself satisfied with the new 
order of things, which enables him to increase his pro- 
perty and fatten on the sweat of the wretched laboring 
men. 

Since the reign of the lord, of the priest and the 
bourgeois will soon disappear, the reign of the people 
should commence*. 

The priest has often predicted the end of the world, 
the people will now announce it, — not the end of the 
world juggled and reduced to nought, but simply the 
end of the wretched world. 

What is named society — that is to say all those lee- 
ches, who suck the people's blood — has attained the 
last step of its power. Society bears death in its bosom. 

Yes, the old society is going — it is dying, because 
it ranks among fatal things, because it rests on false- 
hood and impossibility. Where unity, solidarity and 
fraternity do not exist, the word Society is but a false- 
hood. There is no more faith in honor, no probity in 
transactions, no holy confidence in friendship ; we dream 
of an ideal world, and that is the sole consolation of 
those who suffer. 

Man, by believing he has great knowledge of the hu- 
man heart, thinks he has the right of scorning human- 

/ 



— 7 



//S 



ity, because he sees everywhere nothing but falsehood, 
vile calculation, duperies, intrigues and infernal machi- 
nations. Tired and disgusted, he follows the course of 
the impure and devastating torrent. He does not believe 
in the love of woman, and if he marries, it is through 
vanity — to do like the rest — to have a home, a family, 
which does not prevent him from having mistresses and 
companions of debauchery in town. If he has children, 
he does not overlove them, and they, at the sight of their 
grumbling, old and ridiculous parents, moralists at every 
occasion, find more charm in the laughing . playful ge- 
neration who sees the future dawning, than in that 
which prays in churches and is always backwards in 
politics. Besides, what love, what veneration can these 
frolicsome natures have for parents who have united 
through interest, thinking of nothing else but the dowry 
or the hopes, and who were married through the channel 
of newspapers, the system by which employees or ser- 
vant are procured ? 

Everything is business to-day ; gold reigns supreme, 
it has superseded everything — -friendship, love, family, 
religion, home, humanity. 

Must we despair, submit and suffer with resignation^ 
or hope in death as the only remedy for all these evils? 
when Nature is so rich and beautiful, and the human 
beings full of health and dreaming of happiness ; when 
the Earth is covered with harvests and flowers ; when 
there are so many happy beings : when there is such 
movement and bustle on earth, on the waters, and, very 
soon, in the sky; when all men of intellect think and re- 
flect on the social miseries ? 

No ! Away> with those vain terrors and cowardly 
fears! Rejoice, suffering slaves! Those wars, those 
luxeries, — the happy in contact with the unhappy, — 
are the terrible questions to discuss, the beginning of 
the great work ; it is the end of the Impossible, — the last 



— 8 — 

battles to be fought between old, obstinate Slavery and 
Liberty. 

The world anxiously look towards the Future.; yes, 
every one is at the terrible work — studying the social 
questions. 

If it is the disease, it is also the remedy. 

Proudhon and several philosophers attribute to prop- 
erty the cause of all evils; Proudhon said: "Property is 
robbery !" 

But has not the first occupant or proprietor worked 
enough to grub up the soil, to struggle against wild 
beasts, &c. 1 And to-day, is he not tormented enough 
in his possession by impositions, fines, mortgages, usu- 
rers, lawyers, thieves, rioters and murderers 1 Why 
insult this unhappy shell-snail 1 The poor man ! he was 
coupled like the cattle; he took the chain as gayly 
as the convict takes it sadly ; then he chose a solitary 
and individual life, despised the pleasures and activity 
of man ; he made himself dumb to moral and intellectual 
labor, blind to the improvements and inventions which 
are revolutionizing the world ; he despised everything 
but his egotistical life : he chose a star which failed him, 
and he lives buried and satisfied in the midst of his 
progeny. That is the result of Mariage and Property. 
That unhappy being is always uneasy, he arms himself 
and watches his property night and day, seing nothing 
but thieves, assassins and incendiaries; he has always 
before his eyes this current title of the work of Balzac 
{Les Paysans) : " Qui terre a guerre a ; " that is to 
say that he who owns property is constantly exposed 
to war. 

The first occupants were not thieves, and could not 
know what plagues the institution of property was to 
create ; for must we not fatally go through error, slave- 
ry, misery, &c, before we can discern truth from error; 
fight against slavery to conquer liberty ; work hard to 
get out of misery ? Otherwise it would have been ne- 



— 9 



7/-C 



cessary that men came suddenly on earth like the fish 
in the water, and only have to open and shut their 
mouth to live; be educated and civilized, having rail- 
roads, electric telegraphs, navigation on the waters and 
in the airs : speak but one language, having no knowl- 
edge of wars, slavery, property, and all the plagues in- 
herent to the human institution ; in fine, arrive at one 
single stride to what will have no end, — Progress! 

According to Victor Hugo, it is " to the degradation 
" of man by pauperism : the fall of woman by hunger ; 
u the atrophy of the child by darkness, &c. ...As long 
" as there shall be on earth ignorance and misery..." 

Mr. Victor Hugo, allow me : You are not a prole- 
letaire (pauper), your wife does not feel the pangs 
of hunger, your children are not in darkness, and never- 
theless you do no possess the supreme happiness ! You 
see very well , by the example of a group taken in 
Humanity, that all the evil should not be" attributed to 
the "proletariat (or pauperism), to the degradation of 
" woman, to ignorance " 

Yes, it is through ignorance, but ignorance of what is 
true, just, and by not knowing how to apply the remedy 
to the evil. In a word, it requires actions, few phrases 
and few words; without that, we can arrive at no other 
result but that of producing speeches to put the people 
to sleep over their miseries, and volumes to become 
mouldy in libraries. 

Remark one man, a rude athlet, who dreams but one 
thing, and that thing is all — it is absolute Liberty. 
M. Emile de Girardin does not write novels " which 
may not be useless ; - 1 he wants absolute liberty to cure 
all evils He is right ; but he seems to ignore the fact 
thai he is a subject of the Man-Lie, the man who 
exhausts a whole nation by the words glory, preponde- 
rance of France ; the man who killed the Roman repu- 
blic, the prince who assassinated in an ambush the im- 
mortal Republic of February, — yes, immortal, although 



— 10 — 

the wretch presides at the Tuileries, proud and insolent, 
offering his good services of mediation, or threatening to 
make war against the whole universe. Family of assas- 
sins : the Uncle killed the first Revolution, his mother : 
the Nephew choked the Revolution of '48 (his mother 
by adoption), the Roman republic, and he lately offered 
his mediation to the United States. And at this hour, 

For you, Frenchmen, ah! what shame! 

the soldiers of December, soldiers of the Pope and of the 
Prince of Autria, are dancing over the bloody and smok- 
ing ruins of the Mexican republic ! 

They have slaughtered the Parisians, the provincials, 

the Romans, the Mexicans, the Chinese they would 

thus go round the world! 

Republicans of the North, look out for yourselves ! 

See the plot of covetousness formed for the annihila- 
tion of this Republic — the shame of European monar- 
chies! 

Reflect on the following extract from an old corres- 
pondence of the Courrier des Etats-Unis. The writer 
(M. Gaillardet) expresses himsef thus : 

"The evacuation of this land ("the Crimen) bathed with blood was 
operated with a rapidity tbat struck the whole Europe. The most com- 
petent men had thought that this embarkment of over £50,000 men and 
an immense siege material would at least take six months. It was 
effected in less than three. This prodigious rapidity has been regarded 
as a proof of good will by the czar "Nicholas" ( ?;, who could not have 
been crowned as long as part of the national territory was occupied by 
foreign forces, it has given him, at the same time,. the measure of the 
resources which the French navy could have disposed of. if a discm- 
barkmenton any other point of his Empire had been needed. A dis- 
tance of eight hundred leagues was run on sea with more rapidity and 
facility than it has ever been accomplished on land. The remotest Em- 
pires should then never believe themselves protected by the distance 
which separates them from Europe. Steam is now a hyphen between 
all points of the globe, not only for industry, but also for Justice, whose 
avenging arm can now reach the extremities of the Universe. THERE 
IS IN THAT A GREAT SOCIAL FACT WHICH THE WISE MEN OF 
ALL PARTS OF AMERICA WOULD DO WELL TO MEDITATE. 

"On this subject a Belgian journal reproaches the French press with 
not giving enough importance to the contention existing between En- 
gland and the United States about Central America. THERE IS IN 
THAT A GENERAL INTEREST OF A HIGH RANGE FOR THE 



//y 



\ -a- 



FUTURE — says the Belgian paper, who sees in the conflict no other 
logical solution than the annullation ol the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, 
substituting to said treaty a protocole of all the maritime nations, war- 
ranting the freedom of communication between the two oceans by the 
Isthmus of Panama. " 

It is not a simple pamphlet, but all the sharp-shooters 
and gunners of the Press which are needed to warn tho 
people of the approaching dangers. 

This Republic with its gold mines, and producing 
corn, tobacco, cotton and thousands of other products of 
first necessity, supplying the European markets, and, 
above all, possessing Liberty, — yes, this Republic shames 
out European foyalties, because here the people are free 
and live in abundance, whereas in Europe they are sub- 
jected, enslaved and miserable. 

Girardin, Balzac, Proudhon, Victor Hugo and all the 
philosophers which the world admire make use of a 
beautiful language to paint the miseries of human life ; 
but, to quote the words of a respectable woman writing 
to us : — "Do you think, like Victor Hugo, of changing 
society with mere words 1 " 

There lies all the question. 

To properly lay a question is almost to solve it. 

Thank you, madam ; we shall develop an idea, a means 
which we are firmly convinced will solve forever those 
great questions — if the People will side with us. 

But our voices is a very feeble one, and our resources 
are very limited. No matter ! Let us throw the Idea 
upon the whirlwing! Come what may! It is our 
Right; it is our Duty! 



After ten millions of days and nights of incalculable 
sufferings, the people should know enough and be strong 
enough to apply, himself, the remedy to his evils — 
leaving abide doctors-philosophers and advocate-philan- 
thronists. 



— 12 — 

It is not by adding words to others ; it is not by pro- 
nouncing with emphasis the words Progress, Republic, 
Liberty, that those evils shall cease. No! 

To comprehend and practise Liberty, that is the re- 
medy for all evils ! - 

We must attack the evil at its root, search all the 
corners of society, from top to bottom, the outside and 
inside of those columns of clay which are named Pro- 
perty, Religion, Marriage, forced or voluntary celibacy, 
Family, Government, Law, Armed force, Slavery, Com- 
merce, &c, wherein every one is struggling and wherein 
the people is but a machine, a vile multitude; analyse, 
denounce all that is untrue, mire, falsehood, hypocrisy 
» — all that is horrible at the bottom of those institutions. 
To quote a word from the comedy, Le Ft Is de Giboyer ; 
<— " Speech is also a sword. n 

Ah! mylords-knights Burgesses, we will find out the 
weak point of the cuirass, since our great writers, our 
great poets know not or dare not find it out. 

To this prologue you reply, shrugging your shoul- 
ders : — " Folly! poor sheep, ah! you shall always be 
shorn. " 

We well know that you scorn at the aspirations of 
the people towards Liberty ; we know all the arguments 
with which you lull the people ; you hold fast to your 
properties, to your families, to your prejudices and to 
your privileges; gold is the talisman through which 
you commit all sorts of infamies; nevertheless you are 
feasted and honorod everywhere. 

We pertinently know that you have your scribes who 
are watching from the top of their newspaper columns, 
ready to stop by their hue and cry the first who would 
attempt to raise the voice against your infamies; your 
means are diffamation, discredit, famine, which create 
discouragement, and often cause suicide. However, 
you shall be powerless against the truth contained *n 
this simple pamphlet ; and if the people will follow our 



- 13 - 

advice^ instead of a few individuals to contend with^ 
you shall have a tempest to appease and master. 

We know that your spies, your Jesuits and your paid 
agents watch day and night that the people be calm 
and may not complain or revolt. We know all that and 
many other things yet ; but, we repeat it, we now know 
the Weak point of the cuirass, and we shall fight with 
uncovered breast, without murderous lead, without in- 
cendiary torch, the head up and in the fall light of the 
sun. 

But it is not assistance, alms, nor the right to labor 
which we claim ; it is not a few political reforms for 
which we pray ; no — it is the right to live and liberty 
for all — for you as well as for ourselves. 

We have always trembled before your muskets and 
your cannons ) we have feared your prisons and your 
tortures ; but to-day we fear nothing. We warn you 
that you shall come and kneel before the people : but 
fear not , the powerful is never wicked — the elephant 
never tramples on the reptile but heedlessly. 

Allow us to tell what is a bourgeois. It is a man 
without generous ideas, of gross appetite, cold, insen- 
sible at the sight of the misfortune, misery or despair 
of his fellow-man. The bourgeois is the king — the 
king is but his servant. He commands everywhere and 
speculates on every thing, even on his bastard children 
Which he sells to the first planter he meets. The son 
of the bourgeois smilingly spends his youthful life and 
his fortune ; he is the king of the houses of illfame 
whose inmates strip him of his money and jewels. 

Before going further, we shall sketch society such as 
we see it. 

The saying " each one for himself and each one at 
home, " — - which is a principle of Liberty, — is strictly 
practised by you, and under the mask of philanthropic 
charity, and while you seem to interest yourselves osten- 
sioly to public and private miseries, the greatest horrors 



— 14 — 

are taking place side by side with mirth and sadness. 
A wall, often a simple partition, separates the rich from 
the poor : on one side the spare diet, on the other the 
sumptuous feast ; on one side there is singing and dan- 
cing, on the other weeping and horrible convulsions ; 
here the paralysing cold is felt, there the finest desserts 
are savored by the side of a good fire ; here a person 
meets with violence and murder, there they are laugh- 
ing, singing and dancing; on one side ignoble debau- 
chery, on the other calmness and the peaceable and 
egotistical family life ; here the birth of a being is 
desired, announced with joy, prepared with care in its 
minor details ; there the first symptoms of a birth are 
terrors^ maledictions to men and to God, — the birth 
of a child is a gloom and sometimes a crime. 

In some parts of the city the streets are large, clean, 
planted with trees, shrubs, ivy climbing up to the roofs, 
of houses, with parterres covered with turf, sand and 
gravels; stoops and balconies covered with odoriferous 
flowers — the whole forming a paradise for those well 
dressed and happy inhabitants who chat and laugh 
freely, trampling on the finest carpets ; there are sump- 
tuous residences decorated with taste, the well ventilated 
rooms with their waxed floors, &c, their moveable panes 
of glass to condense the air with the heat of tLe warm- 
ing pipes ; lustres, gas everywhere filling the place of 
the sun at night; servants, male and female, kind and 
attentive to the least wants or caprice of their masters ; 
they have everything close at hand and at will — fuel, 
eatables, fresh or preserved; professors of languages, of 
singing and dancing for their children ; nurses who have 
abandoned their children to the sucking-bottle — an 
instrument that kills more surely than the revolver, 
— yes, nurses who have abandoned and left their own 
babes to come and suckle, with oppressed hearts and 
eyes filled with tears, the babes of those ladies. 

Around those sumptuous residences, it is not — as it 



— 15 — 

was befor the Republic — the serfs beating the ponds 
to prevent the frogs from troubling the voluptuous sleep 
of their lords and masters ; but instead of that there are 
guardians and police agents who watch day and night 
to prevent thieves and mendicants from coming near. 

In other parts of the city, narrow and unwholesome 
streets, high and badly closed houses, constructed with 
such solidity as to fall down and hurrying under their 
ruins household furniture and inhabitants : close, low, 
dirty rooms, without yards non gardens ; no trees, no 
flowers ; the water down stairs or at the fountain; the 
gas in the street or the stinking candle or the homicid 
fluid for he who can buy it : the trash of the market 
traveling the streets in the rain and in the heat of the 
sun, impairing the food of the people ; vagrants in rags 
exposed to the bitter cold, rain, mud and snow; in sum- 
mer, the insects and vermin, the deleterious miasmas, 
the suffocating heat; there, in those infectious dwell- 
ings, after long days of hard and rude labors, men, 
women and children are grouping around a meagre 
supper, drinking water or unwholesome beverages — 
without speaking of the tobacco or opium which besot 
them, loosing therely their reason, their intelligence ; 
and, at night, crowded in their filthy beds, where vermin 
and sickness tortures them, they die for want of whole- 
some food, doctors or medicines There too are the 
police, but it is to watch and see that the people cons- 
pire not, collect together or make any attempt on private 
property, on the morals. &c. There, it is the daughter 
of the people who abandons her family and renounces 
to marriage, in which she can see nothing but toil and 
miseries, to launch herself in debauchery, sellincr her 
body to him — thief or assasin — who has gold. There, 
it is the workman who abandoned his ungrateful toil to 
throw himself into libertinism, sometimes associating 
with the prostitute to decoy into their den, strip and 
murder the unsuspected and candid passer-by. Of 



— 16 — 

course the cries of the victims are heard, but the passers- 
by mutter out in a low tone — u Each one for himself. " 
Oh! this society is ignoble when at night the encoun- 
ter of a fellow-creature is more to be dreaded than 
that of wild breasts ! 

The people have become so accustomed to this disor- 
der of things, that they work and accustom themselves 
to privations and misery as though it were quite natural ; 
they disown their rights and that which they owe to 
their children and to humanity. Some few robust and 
rude natures among the people, by working hard and 
Buffering privations, sometimes attain the highest steps 
of speculation ; these are the very ones who exercise the 
most pressure on the wretched. 

By confiding to the savings banks the fruits of their 
economies, the people make the rich say that they earn 
too much ; it is then that the wages are reduced from 
time to time, while the price of provisions rises as well 
as that of rent and everything necessary to the exis- 
tence of man, — for the life of the rich is nothing but a 
perpetual calculation ) he makes the earth and the flesh 
produce the most possible ; he may earn a thousand or 
a hundred thousand more one ye*ar than the other : 
never will he increase the salary unless he is forced to 
do so by the strikes, — an increase insignificant and 
fatally good, for the more the workman shall be com- 
pelled to live miserably the sooner will he open Jiis eyes 
and search the means to better his condition. 

The poor people count by farthings and pennies ; the 
rich count by francs, dollars, thousands and millions. — 
There are some who think less of a hundred or a thou- 
sand dollars, than others do of a penny or of a dime. 

When we say that there are some who think less of a 
hundred or a thousand dollars than otheirs of a penny 
or a dime, we mean to say that they think less of an 
expense of one hundred dollars to enjoy themselves, than 
others do of a penny or a dime to procure that which is 



- /2-a 

— 17 — 

strictly necessary. With their calculation — money 
or credit — the rich know how to add up how much 
will yield so many heads of human cattle, black or white, 
by the work of a day or of a year; and al.-o how much, 
by reducing the wages of each one, they will exactly 
produce. They know how to buy their provisions in large 
quantities and of the best quality at half price, while the 
poor pay double for inferior quality; and let us add that 
when the poor buy on credit or make a small loan of 
money, it is a the legal rate of 25 per cent or more. 

As for the rich, the law against coalitions cannot reach 
them, for they can assemble and discuss at home, cause 
an increase in the price of everything, and treat at will 
all cuestions without fear of spies or gendarmes ; while 
the poor have no peaceable place of meeting whatever 
and have to submit to laws prejudicial to their interest. 

But these are things which everybody know, and 
which are secondary to those which we intend to treat 
hereafter. Besides, all the world know that all is profit 
and favor for he who possesses, to the detriment of those 
who have nothing but their arms to work for a living. 

Look at the great trees of the forests. When they 
have attained the period of their growth , they pine 
away and fall to decomposition. Thus will it be with 
Property; the great wretchedness produced by it will be 
the cause of its downfall: for the people, when they 
shall understand the idea of emancipation, will rise and 
— it is the insurgent Barbes who said so — " their 
enemies will disappear like chaff before the wind. " 

Laborers of the cities, you certainly deeply feel all 
your miseries : but the country people, sweating blood 
and water — far from the labors of intelligence — in 
order to extract the riches from the soil and the entrails 
of the earth, what privations and miseries have they not 
to suffer ! 

Armies of soldiers, mariners, laquays, jailors, slaves, 
workingmen of- all countries, all those people wlio are 



— 18 — 

scorned, whipped, imprisoned, judged, condemned and 
killed in battles on sea and on land, in foul workshops, 
ship-yards, plantations, hospitals, in the mines, in pri- 
sons, and even in the public thoroughfares. 

For the people, to whom everything is due, there is 
not even charity or pity for them ! 

If this disorderly state of things were to continue, we 
would be Malthusians with good heart, for it would be 
better to strangle those beings at the moment of their 
birth, rather than see" them grow up, become strong to 
bow before a master, stupidly kneel before a priest, fall 
lifeless under the mouth of a cannon or the axe of the 
executionner ! 

While enjoying liberty as we do, we shall denounce 
in twenty pamphlets — if we have the means — all 
those infamies, those murders, those strangling of human 
beings and liberties ; and when men shall see how Society 
is horrible and frightful, they will fall back horror- 
struck. 

The task is a rude one to conquer liberty. Alas ! 
how many murders, riots, revolutions, wars, how much 
blood shed until this day! 

To find out the word, the idea, the gordian knot of the 
social question, as we find the secret of a great inven- 
tion, — then the equilibrium of so many centuries of ini- 
quities shall be so well broken, that it is well to warn 
the people — like the lightning before the tempest — 
of the change which is about to take place all over the 
globe. 

All the most beautiful speeches, the most beautiful 
reasoning, all the proofs that evil is surely evil — all 
that is idleness ! One might indicate as clear as day 
that the sovereign remedy for the evils which decimate 
and desolate the people has been found, nevertheless the 
relief would not be materially felt. So many words, so 
many speeches, controversies and writings would serve 
but to procure more and more lucrative positions for 



— 19 — 

speakers and journalists, and good speculations for 
publishers and merchants. 

The people is at school since thousands of years. Now 
or never is the time when the scholar should become 
practitioner. It is time that he who produces every- 
thing should have his share in everything. It is greatly 
time that he who has always been in darkness should 
have his share of the sun's rays. In fine, it is time 
that the slave should fully enjoy liberty. 

To work ! to work ! to work ! All hands on deck ! or 
all is going down to the same abyss, treasures and 
miseries. 

It is the cry of distress. 

Brothers of all the Lodges of the universe, come to 
our aid, you who are working since five thousand years 
for your brothers all over the world. Be with us and 
we shall triumph. 

To our aid, workmen of the universe ! Help us in 
our war against this monstrous and rotten society, in 
order to reconstruct it on the solid foundations of Li- 
berty, Fraternity and Equality. 

Come also to our aid, you too, happy rich, parasites, 
speculators, usurers, merchants, Jesuits, spies, judges, 
jailors and gendarmes, who, in order to keep up your 
rank and hold your position in society, are forced to 
put aside all the humane feelings which are at the bot- 
tom of your conscience. Come! slaves of the worst 
kind, for your own good and in your own interest, we 
rely a good deal on you, because you owe enormously 
to your unhappy brothers ! 

Come to our aid, sea-faring men, to carry the good 
news to all the peoples. Come to us, for we shall need 
your experience of navigation to perfect the speed and 
security of distant excursions. 

Oh ! women, come to our aid, you angels who are en- 
during all the evils of this hell: we shall feast you al- 
ways, that we may see you smiling and happy. In the 



— 20 — 

name of your brothers, of your sisters, of your old pa- 
rents, of your children; in the name of your most secret 
affections ; in the name of your disowned and despised 
dignity; in the name of your liberty, help us in the en- 
franchisement of all! Without your help and encoura- 
gement, we shall fail in the accomplishment of our task ; 
with you, we shall surely succeed. 

Come to our aid, young girls ! slaves of the laws and 
speculations of men ; victims of the morals and stupi- 
dity which throne and dispose of everything ; simple 
and candid young girls, your support is immense ! Help 
us, and soon you may love whom you please, go and 
come freely, respected by all. 

And you all, brothers and sisters, children and old 
men, who are riveted to the chain of labor or peniten- 
tiaries, on the hospital beds, in cellars, in garrets, in 
holes, in kennels, whithout bread or fire, paralysed by 
cold or suffocated by heat : we say to you — Hope ! a 
little more suffering — your existence is twice dear to 
us ; hope, for the hour of freedom is near ! 

All of you who have read" a little of ancient and mo- 
dern history, who have assisted to the last revolutions, 
remember how the dictators, the presidents, the kings, 
the emperors, the priests, the lords and the burgesses 
have treated the people - — the serfs ; remember the 
human auto-da-fe, the tortures of the Inquisitions, the 
emprisonments in the Bastille, the lettres de cachet, the 
oubliettes, the wholesale massacres, the crucifixions, the 
deaths by the guillotine , hanging , or drowning"; the 
transportations, the empalements, the dungeons, the 
cells, the rope, the boiling pitch and oil, the water, the 
red hot iron, the ladders, the quartering* ; in fine, a 
thousand manners of causing tortures and death which 
we know not and which are so horrible that one would 
believe them to be stories; and yet the people of all 
countries have suffered those horrors, when they pro- 



— 21 — 

tested against the lie of men and revolted to conquer 
their liberty. 

And the morals that permitted those human sacrifices ; 
and even to-day the slaughtering of the massess by 
conscription to suit the fancy of kings : and in the ordi- 
nary disorder what do we see ? They think before all 
of material life. He who thinks that we should be 
mindful of the future, of liberty, of fighting the tyrants, 
of the miseries of the people, causes the satisfied rich 
who fatten on the sweat of the working people to say : 
" What do all those socialists, communists and incorri- 
gible revolutionists want ? They would do better to 
work and mind their own business. " They repeat in 
other terms these words of Mr. Guizot, the ex-minister 
of Louis-Philippe — " Labor is a check. 1 ' — Therefore, 
we see everywhere despair, suicides, murders , and men 
bowing low, selling themselves, drajr themselves in 
infamy and misery ; and the young girls, the women , 
selling themselves in marriage or prostitution! 

Has not the time come to put a stop to those oceans 
of human blood, to those tempests of complaints and 
despairs ? 

Then let the People meet in public places, and in their 
meetings sign and issue — the same way as Abraham 
Lincoln — a Proclamation conceived thus : 

Article 1. 

In the name of Liberty. 

From the 24th of February; 1870, all men, women 
and children, of all race and color, are now and shall 
forever remain FREE. 

• Article 2. 

On the 24th of February, 1870, at daybreak, the 



— 22 — 

people shall cease to perform any longer all manual 
labor, and peaceably walk about and contemplate their 
power and show it to those who have speculated on 
their toil. 

Decreed in New York, free city of the world, the 24th 
of February, 1864. the 17th year of the era of Socia- 
lism . 

To the people is intrusted the execution of this pre- 
sent and first decre-e of the people to the people. 
(Follow the signatures.} 



We wil develop this idea. 

By the constant progress in industry, in the arts and 
sciences, and by all that which is passing before our eyes 
to the detriment of the poor and against the poor, the 
people shall soon reach the lowest degree of slavery, 
ancient and modern. We can see every day more and 
more all the business going into the hands of the great 
capitalists: — great firms, gigantic enterprises, with 
sounding capital doubled, tripled, quintupled by credit 
and paper. — " The rich only can borrow money ; " 
therefore, the small firms, the minor industries vainly 
struggle and only obtain credit at a high interest, war- 
ranted by good securities — for the rich never will risk 
either capital or interest, nor the interest of interests. 
Those who have enough capital to live for the remainder 
of their days retire from the struggle , become rentiers 
(annuitants), speculators and usurers. These are the 
most prudent ; they invest their money on good mort- 
gages, on State stocks, and then live selfishly, mnmindful 
of the questions of the day. 

Those who intrust their capitals to the rich know that 



/23 

— 23 — 

their money is sure and that it will bring them large 
profits. The consequence of this is that we see wealthy 
firms delivering goods at fabulously low prices. Thus, 
little by little, workmen, foremen and small manufac- 
turers come and offer every day their services to these 
solid houses where, although the salary is small, there 
is more security, besides the glory of being employed by 
such firms. 

Wretchedness and misery work up the brain and 
often cause the discovery of great inventions; and the 
poor inventors unable to carry their discovery to per- 
fection, are forced to sell their secret to capitalists. 
That is what we call " carrying water to the sea, " 
and puts the people more and more under the domina 
tion of the rich. 

If the rich undertake, by shares, a line of railroad 
or steamers, omnibus or cars, or any other great enter- 
prises which at first seems uncertain of profits, the small 
purses are invited to join in, and they do rushln, the ones 
allured by gain, the others by covetousness of under- 
hand dealings. The speculations on the Stock Exchange 
soon cause all these actions to fall in discredit ; the 
small shareholders are soon seized with panic, and the 
rich — who caused the fall in values — buy all they 
can. The game is played : the small shareholder fur- 
nished the funds, and Macaire reaps the profits ! 

When the Christian kneels down and joins his hands, 
with his eyes turned up to heaven, he contemplates God 
and hopes in the promised land. 

When the working man, through privations, succeeds 
in making economies, which he deposits in the banks, 
it is that with 5 or 6 per cent interest he hopes to become 
proprietor and speculator in his turn. 

When the rich crosses his arms, with his legs up and 
fixed eyes, he is calculating; he is in extacy before the 
figures of the Stock Exchange. — Bertrand and Macaire 



-24- 

know that they oan make more out of that than the 
miners of California with their placers. 

The former, the religious, id the pupil of intelligent 
and even well educated people, — knowing that it is 
necessary to keep the people in ignorance, making them 
understand that in another world they will eternally 
enjoy supreme happiness; that the kingdom of God is 
the inheritance of the simple minded. But they, the 
cunning rascals, are in the meantime enjoying the plea- 
sures of this paradise near at hand, and laugh at the 
good faith of their dupes. 

The latter, the workingman, struggles with a vain 
hope J want of work, sickness, unhappy undertakings 
cause his hair to turn gray before time. 

The rich can exempt himself of all extra-duties or 
unprofitable toil, of all that the poor must submit 
to. With a little money (the rate in France is 2,000 
francs, and in America 300 dollars, more or less), they 
can exempt their sons from paying the tax of blood ; and 
very often they can do so without money, through the 
influence of relatives presiding the councils of revision* 
All situations and lucrative sinecures are in their hands : 
directors, clerks, employes, ministers of the Gospel and 
Bible, prefects, judges, officers, generals, inspectors, 
mayors, church wardens, representatives of the people, 
counsellors at law, writers, consuls, embassadors, cham- 
berlains or portes queues, are named, elected, chosen 
amongst the rich. Power, dignities, honors, everything 
is in the hands of the rich ; whereas the son of the poor, 
the working man, the country man and seaman support 
all the burdens and the hardships of the times. 

And after that we are astonished that the people are 
depraved and commit crimes ! We are astonished that 
the people fill the prisons, — that the daugthers of the 
people fill the houses of prostitution ! 

But it is not Vice that revels in the houses of prosti* 
tution, — it is Misery 1 



— 25 — 

It is not Crime that crawls in the peniteneiaries, — 
it is Misery! 

It is not Murder and Assassination that ascend the 
steps of the scaffold, — it is Misery ! 

It is not Crime. Murders, Assassination, Vagrancy, 
Infanticide, Swindling, &c, awaiting judgement in the 
prisons, in dungeons ; no, — it is Misery ! 

What do we say of a man who has commited a cul- 
pable and shameful action 1 We say with sadness : — 
" It is a Wretch ! " 

Oh ! we should never scorn and despise any one } we 
should rather have pity on him, and, notwithstanding 
what we hear others say against him. believe him to be 
good rather than bad. 

Paupers, notwithstanding all your troubles and all 
your virtues, you have all the vices. 

Have gold, and, notwithstanding all your infamies, 
you shall have all the virtues — in the eyes of society. 

And the proof of this is that it is always the sons of 
the poor people, the miserables (since this word is in 
fashion), who are always dragged in prison and before 
the tribunals. 

It matters not! Work away, inspect, watch the 
people ! " Valet, prepare the harnesses and carriages ! 
paint the hoofs of the horses, let down the steps, — we 
are going to the Wood! John, drive at full gallop, and 
splash all those sluggish fellows ! " says the proud and 
satisfied rich. 

What do the people require more to see clearly through 
this disorder of things, and to resolve not to be slaves 
any longer ? Do they require greater catastrophes ? 
Have they not hunger at home 1 the wholesale mas- 
sacres of the battlefield ? Have they not the prison ? the 
houses of refuge for their old age ? the benevolent socie- 
ties where the wants are weighed and where, instead 
of relief you hear religious sermons 1 Has not the Pope 
lately sent ten thousand francs to the wretched inhabi 



— 26 — 

tants of Lower Seine — the price of at least one of his 
chasubles... a few pennies for each hungry person ? 
And has not Napoleon III distributed among them, 
through the hands of his priests, one hundred thousand 
francs (what generosity and efficacity of relief!) And 
besides, such generosity and benevolence are bestowed 
only on those who are religious and submissive to the 
government! The Legislative- Corps have voted five 
millions of francs for the hungry workmen of France, 
but at the same time they will give hundreds of millions 
to pay the expenses of that shameful war of Mexico. 

The French have taken Puebla, Mexico and other 
cities. It was understood that they were to treat of 
peace in Mexico, and then reembark : they have on the 
contrary decreed the Empire, and already they are 
talking of intervention in favor of the South against 
the North. England and Spain will soon join with 
France, and sooner or later they will choke our rich, 
proud and free Republic of Washington, the same way 
that Russia, Prussia and Austria are dividing Poland 
between themselves. 

To-day the European monarchies perceive that Repu- 
blics are their shame and danger. It is a deadly war 
betwen Slavery and Liberty. 

If the North should succumb, the peoples of Europe 
would certainly feel an increase of bondage of which 
it would be impossible to get free forever. 

All those soldiers trained up in the art of war are 
excited and full of fanaticism. They have been told so 
often that they were the champions of Civilisation and 
Liberty, that they now believe they really are, and look 
upon us, republicans , as, heartless savages and blood 
drinkers. 



Workmen, shall you be deaf] Do you prefer e slavery 
and charity! while those gentlemen and ladies, your 



/£6 

— 27 — 

masters, have all they wish for and travel for their 
pleasure in all parts of the world wherever they can 
enjoy the splendors of a beautiful sun, rich landscape, 
pure air and good fare, splendid waterfalls. &c; and the 
poor people offering them the finest fruits and the 
master-pieces of their work shops — always ready to 
serve masters, valets, horses and dogs! 

Must we wait to act that the master imposes on the 
people all the ancient and modern usages of slavery ? 
that two men cannot meet and speak about any subject 
they choose without being watched by a spy or a gen- 
darme; without being dragged in prison, if they talk 
about the price of bread, or the cost of a government ? 

Cannot a person (as it is now the case in New York), 
man or woman, stop on any public place without a poli- 
man pushing him and saying — " Go on ! " And if you 
are a stranger, believing yourself free to look at the stars 
or wait for some friend, must a policeman, with raised 
club, arrest you and confine you in the cells of station 
houses, fit rather for beasts than for men ? 

And if you have received a bad banknote in exchange 
for your labor, must you be arrested as a forger and 
detained in prison for any length of time for want of 
proofs of your innocence, or for want of bail. 

Must we no more circulate freely day or night, a 
bundle under the arm, without being interrogated by a 
policeman like a dishonest man or a thief 1 Or more, 
that in each city — as in London lately — misery drive 
tke people to madness and make of them night-strang- 
l$rs by profession % 

If, through privations, or returning from a dinner or 
pic-nic, you stagger a little in walking, must the police- 
man roughly take hold of you, with the club raised up, 
handcuff and drag you in those dirty cells, with all 
kinds of people, robbers, assassins and prostitutes, and 
leave you there until next day. Then, if you are not 
found dying or dead — as is often the case — they fine 



— 28 — 

you, and in default of your paying the find, you are sent 
to prison. 

Must you be forbidden to speak, smoke in the streets, 
murmur tunes of liberty — as is done here, in France 
and other civilized countries, where one must bow befor 
the gendarmes and spies, or else be imprisoned or exiled ? 

Must we be prevented to cry out : thief! when we 
are robbed by a passerby, a hotel keeper or other, 
without being yourself arrested for troubling the public 
peace ? And, nevertheless, you are not ignorant of the 
fact that while the merchant swindles you on the weight 
or measure, he moreover succeeds in selling you cow for 
beef, cotton for wool, or brass for gold. 

Must the proprietor of the house you live in put you 
and your familv out in the streets — snow or rain — 
whether you or any member of your family are sick or 
not, because you cannot pay him at the precise time — 
as it is sometimes done in New York. 

Those mock auctions in the centre of Broadway, where 
your are beaten and knocked down for refusing to pay 
for the brass which was sold to you as gold, — the po- 
lice know them well, they pass by those houses at all 
hours of the day and arrest the person who has been 
robbed if he cries out : thief! because he troubles the 
public peace ; but they leave the patented auctioneer 
continue his business ! 

Must the people — unable to marry the woman of 
their choice — go always to those haunts of debauchery 
in the neighborhood of doctors and druggists'? 

And those soldiers, those inhabitants of convents, 
male and female, shut up in celibacy! One cannot 
imagine the infamies committed within closed doors as 
well as in the full light of day. The pen cannot des- 
cribe them. 

Must the workman be altogether a machine and the 
master impose on him such things as the bell to call 
him to work, the bell to eat, the bell to go out; the vexa- 



— 29 



/#C 



tions " rule8 of the house " J and all this in order that 
the workman may produce more while living poorly ; 
whereas the master has at the end of each year a large 
total of profits ! 

Suppose you are working by the piece ; soon the master 
will perceive, - by the comfort you enjoy, by your inde- 
pendence, — that you earn too much money ; then he 
shall diminish your salary, which will bring on disgust 
and aversion for labor and even for life. If your are 
employed on time, you shall perform the least possible 
labor : you shall gain nothing thereby, neither will the 
master, and the community will suffer by it. What 
cares the master as long as you are his slave ! 

Oh ! because woman is weak and in great wants, and 
has not the credit or the great resscurces of man, must 
the young girls, the women prostitute themselves after 
the days work in order to live — as it is the case in the 
great manufacturing cities ? 

Must the workman, after long years of toil and mi- 
sery, be obliged to pick up the filth in the streets, in 
order to live ? Must he be reduced to carry burthens, 
clean boots for every body or perform other humiliating 
work to earn a few pennies, and not be allowed to sleep 
on the stoops of the palaces that he built ? 

Poor people, are you not miserable enough 1 Have 
your robust sons and your most beautiful daughters 
more sacrifices to offer 1 You have yet your life left, but 
the master cares more about it than you do yourself, for 
the more you are miserable the weaker and cheaper you 
will be. Oh ! we are more civilized to-day than they 
were in the old times of holocausts : we appreciate the 
value of man, black or white, by what his muscles and 
his sweat canfproduce ! 

Must you rise up again and cry out a thousand 
times : " To live by working or die while fighting ! " 
so that government and the burgesses or masters may 



: 30 — 

reduce you in larger numbers yet, because you will not 
be contented with your precarious position. 

Must you have a renewal of the massacres of Gua- 
dalupe and St. Bartholomew — negroes fco-day slaughter- 
ing the whites, to-morrow the whites slaughtering the 
negroes ; Catholics and Protestants struggling and 
fighting against each other : in a word, oceans of blood, 
tears, moanings all over the world ? 

To-day it is the draft in America — the universal 
conscription, the universal massacre; not a single spot 
on the globe is exempt from it. And who shall stop 
all those sanguinary fools ? Who shall stop your chil- 
dren and grand children from being the victims of Death 
on the battlefields, or choked in prisons, in hospitals, 
or in the workshops, while your masters and tyrants 
enjoy themselves? 

Must you be enclosed like cattle, like negro slaves, 
pell-mell with women and children, and let the master 
sell you wholesale or retail, at his own will, or make 
you work bound in chains like convicts, ovfree like the 
cerfs of Russia % 

The people of France have always wished to conquer 
Liberty, but they have always failed — probably because 
the means employed were unworthy of Liberty — who 
may be a goddess seeking noble and valorous knights 
worthy of her ! 

In all countries of the world, when the people would 
conquer Liberty, they have always proceeded by vio- 
lence, murder, devastation and conflagration — terrible 
but often just retaliations — but which only served to 
bring about more terrible disasters j for reaction, 
mastered for a moment, would again get hold of the 
power and strip the people of the few remnants of 
liberty they had enjoyed before the insurrection. 

Besides, these brutal means are alike repugnant to 
humanity and reason ; it is always brutal force wishing 
to reign and impose the idea. The idea should be clear, 



31 



/A.y 



palpable, comprehensible : in fine, it should be Truth 
itself : then the reign of matter will disappear like snow 
or ice exposed to the rays of the sun. Therefore, no 
more iron or lead for our personal defence : no more 
torches but to lead us in obscurity. 

Without the absolute observation of these conditions, 
there will be no triumph ! 

Listen now to citizen Dejacque, and see by what 
terrible means he wishes to free the people : 

" To work then ! for we must not be sleeping in the expectation o 
the expiatory day. We must prepare it. Each day, women and pro- 
letaires, and in the measure of our strength and of our convictions, it is 
in the household, in the workshop, at the corner of deserted streets, it 
is to-day, a every hour, at every instant that we must act, rise in insur- 
rection and revolution 

To work ! and iet him who is hungry T and would eat ; 

He w ho is thirsty and would drink ; 

He who is naked and would be clothed ; 

He who is cold in body and soul and would be comforted by the fire of 
love ; 

He who wears on his hands and face the traces of homicide labor, and 
would w rk no more to fatten the idle ; 

He who feels himself dying through privations and would improve 
his precarious condition ; 

Al 1 those who suffer and would enjoy themselves; 

In fine, let them who have pairns and crowns of miseries rise ! that 
their number and their rebellion may terrify ihe spectators, the com- 
manders and the executio*ers of their martyrdom ! 

Rise up all ! 

And by speech and pen. 

By dagger and musket, 

By irony and imprecation, 

By pillage and adultery, 

By poisoning, and conflagration, 

Let us make on the highways of principles and at the corners of in-' 
dividual rights — by insurrection or assassination — war to society ! . . . 
war to civilization ! 

By adultery —that is to say, to cause, as much as possible, disorgani- 
zation in the family ; — that no one husband can say : " I am the faiher of 
this child !" and that, finding in marriage nothing but fatigue and dis- 
gust, an insufferable existence, he may be compelled, to get rid of it 
and himself ask for liberty of love and abandon his authority. That in 
everything good may grow out of evil, since the high evil-doers, by 
their resistance to progress, wish it so ! 

Let every revolutionist choose among those whom he can rely upon, 
one or two other proletaires like himself ; and let them all — by groupes 
of three or four, without being found together, so that the discovery of 
one group may not cause the arrect of the others — work lor the de- 



— 32 — 

Btruction of the old society, and show to the privileged classes the peril 
in which they are — show them in such a manner as to make them em- 
brace the common cause, in order to escape rum and death. 

For example, let each group proceed thus : out of three or four 
members of a group, if there is a house carpenter, let him take the im- 
pression of the door locks of the rich apartments wherein he is called 
to work ; let him inspect all the issues, and question adroitly the ser- 
vants in order to obtain all the informations necessary ; and all these 
measures taken, let him inform the other members of the group — his 
accomplices if you like — and at a given moment let them penetrate at 
night into these rich houses, and stab or strangle the master or masters, 
break or open with false keys the furniture wherein they can find 
plated ware, jewels or money ; let them carry off all they can, and set 
fire to the house before they leave it. But they should not immediately 
use their booty to improve their condition : it would be their loss ; for 
a visible change in their appearance would signalize them to the police. 
Let them murder and rob to destroy, only let them hide under ground 
all the g.'ld they may ha^e laid their hands on, so that, if one or several 
of them should be suspected or discovered, this gold might be employed 
to escape. Let the group who can buy a clandestine printing office do 
it, and print every day bullitins proclaiming the aim and means of 
action of the terrible society, and inform the public that all the murders, 
robberies, etc., committed through the city and country are the work 
of the revolutionists, the new Jacques, and that this work of de truc- 
tion shall continue so long as Equality shall not have dethroned Privi- 
lege. 

In another group where there may be e confectioner let this workman 
do all he can to get employment in one of the largest con feet ior.ery 
establishments patronized by the rich ; and on New-Year's day. for in- 
stance, (a day or two before), let him poison one or ten or twenty pans 
of sugar confectionery — as much as he can — so that the next day a 
hundred thousand aristocrats may have ceased to live ; and let the 
secret society claim, through their clandestine press, the responsibility 
of these acts. 

;; Let the same deed be accomplished in the perfumers' shops. The 
fit e wines should also be poisoned, as well as all kinds of cakes, ice 
creams, etc. In tne country, let the rich proprietors' harvest be burnt 
as well as their houses and the churches. Let the same thing be done 
in the cities with regard to houses, churches, government buildings, 
etc. ; that the sword of Damocles be constantly suspended over the 
heads of the privileged ones; that the serpents of terror, like those of 
Nemesis, whistle clay and night at their ears and make them tremble 
over their gold ; that their position become intolerable, and that, in 
the midst of such 'agonies, they fall on their knees and beg (or pardon, 
and supplicate the poor workingman to grant therr. the right to live in 
exchange for their privileges, and the common happiness in exchange 
for the general unhappiness." 



To the enemies of the liberty of the press we would 
ask what perturbation have those ideas created ! Those 



— 33 — 

who have read the above proposition have judged it, and 
it has fallen to the ground without loss of life or limb. 
If the pamphlet from which we have quoted had been 
printed in France, author and printer would both have 
been fined and imprisoned. In this country it has not 
even gained for its author the right to inhabit the mad- 
houses of Charenton or Bedlam. 

We have known the writer of the above ; he wes a 
fool like Jesus and all those men who have dreamed of 
Liberty for the slave. Seeing the indifference of the 
people and the blindness of those who were governing 
them, he proposed — as he thought — a great remedy 
for the great evil. 

These writings should not offense the partisans of 
Liberty. Not to " hide the light under the bushel *' ia 
a nonsense if we do not wish that each idea should be 
made public; for where is " light ? '' and who will dis- 
tinguish what is true and what is not, if all the ideas 
are not publicy known % We must be logical, since 
the secret societies who arm the assassin creat horrors. 
And morever, must a writer, without a journal to plead 
his cause, be printer and publisher at the same time ? 
This is what we have to do. 



CONCLUSION. 

We said at the second page of this work : " This 
book is not a woak of hatred or envy: it all of love and 
pity for those who suffer, &c. " And the people should 
know that they will find aid and enthusiasm among 
the rich if they see that the people are seriously disposed 
to use an honest means, without violence, to obtain their 
freedom. For the troubles and miseries of the rich are 
also great and terrible before he can attain wealth ; the 
struggles of the mind and conscience are a great night- 



— 34 -- 

mare for a man of sense, of reason, of education, and 
who knows what is just and what is not. But the insti- 
tutions, the Jaws, the morals, are all to the advantage 
of the rich, and he profits by them: meanwhile he feels 
the injustice of his favors; and that gives us the hope 
that our means will have an echo, because it is without 
violence, without intimidation ; it has nothing to dissi- 
mulate, nothing to hide, and should be put into execu- 
tion with head up and in the full light of the sun. 

The people build the houses, the palaces, the fort- 
resses, the ships, the railroads, dig canals, weave the 
linen and other stuffs, make the clothing and every- 
thing else ; extract the minerals and transform all the 
matters in a thousand manners ; and as a reward for 
all their troubles and hardships, they are not only left 
in utter misery, but are looked upon with contempt by 
those whom they have made prosperous. 

Since the workman possesses nothing and produces 
everything, he must be all. He is a slave — he must 
be free. 

We will enumerate a few of the means which the 
people might use, and which, though not sanguinary, 
would not be the less terrible. They consist in every 
one breaking the chains which bind his liberty and his 
conscience : the soldier disobeying the orders of his 
chiefs 5 the workman asking every day for an increase 
of wages; the servant refusing to do certain kind of 
work; the wife becoming free and breaking the chains 
which bind her liberty and her heart; that he who is 
hungry and thirsty, who is naked and without shelter, 
would take, without regard for the laws of the holders 
(Proudhon says tlneves), the food, clothing and shelter 
wherever he can find them, without care for the police 
— for the prisons would be insufficient to contain all the 
people claiming, not the right to labor, but the natural 
right to live ! 



/&? 



— 35 — 



To proclaim in a word that suicide is a cowardly act, 
begging disgraceful, and robbing a natural right. 

We have said that we would define Property, Reli- 
gion, Marriage, Celibacy (forced or voluntary), Family, 
Government, Law, Armed Force, Salary, Commerce, 
everything we are taught to respect and honor, from 
the laws of men to the Commandments of God ; we 
shall do so, if we have time and means. 

From the 24th of February 1870, a new era will com- 
mence ! The people need not coalise, use fire or steel, 
threats or intimidation ; all they have to do is simply 
to fold their arm3 and work no more. 

"By this material fact only — which is better than all 
the speeches and the most horrible and sanguinary plots 
— the old society will be shaken in all its institutions. 

See what will happen : 

The soldiers listening no longer to the voice of their 
chiefs — no more battles, no more possible murders^ 

For want of men to harness and drive the horses, the 
means of circulation are stopped. No more workmen 
on the railroads, no more sailors for navigation, and 
consequently no more sea voyages possible. 

The butchers, bakers, shoemakers, milkmen, gas fit- 
ters, mechanics, drivers, conductors, carpenters, black- 
smiths, cooks, servants, compositors and pressmen, &c, 
leaving off work suddenly, the rich cannot bake their 
bread, slaughter the cattle, cultivate the vegetables, 
prepare their meals, wash their linen, print the news- 
papers, &c. They will then be forced to open their eyes 
and acknowledge the almightiness of the workingman! 

" Ah ! you have forced upon us your laws, " will the 
people say — "laws that were made against us; we 
have always worked for you : we wish now to work for 
ourselves ; you have inposed upon us the observance of 
a day of rest in honor of God : we shall see how we 
may act about that and many other things when we are 
free. " 



— 36 — 

Having such power — a power increasing every day 
more and more before the great date of the end of the 
miserable world - — the people will be able to command 
and impose his will to the old society. Thus — to give 
an example — suppose a plot is discovered and the 
authors judged and condemned to death, the people say 
to Society : a If you execute the sentence before the 24th 
of February, 1870, we decree that the shoemakers, for 
example, cease to work, or we will make the universa 3 
strike. " 

Before this terrible treat society would be compelled 
to suspend the execution and liberate the prisoners. 

The people could do the same with regard to political 
prisoners. They would thus in their turn command like 
lords and even like tyrants — with this difference that 
such tyranny would be exercised to stop the flowing of 
tears and blood. 

A>t a given moment the workingman could say to the 
speculating masters : " We wish no longer to be paid 
in gold or paper currency, for you would soon cause the 
price of paper to rise and' that of gold to fall, at your 
will; henceforth we wish to be paid in productions of 
the soil, such as grain, vegetables, cattle, poultry, me- 
tals, &c. ; and if you do not accede to our demands, 
comply with our exigencies — our laws, if you like — we 
decree the M strike " of one or several corporations. 

" But how will those masses of working people live ? " 
will the optimists ask. 

We answer : In all countries there are uncultivated 
lands the proprietors of which would loan large portions 
of them, — we know of some who would even heartily 
give land without compensation. Tents could there 
be erected by the people, and with the provisions that 
would have been procured establish thamselves. By 
hunting, fishing, the raising of cattle, the labor of the 
fields, without system old or new, they can help one 



/So 

37- 

another. Later, when the Idea shall reign freely ins- 
tead of the Matter, we can organise the new society. 

Let us not hesitate to practise liberty, —for " the 
best way to learn how to swim is to jump into the 
water. " 

A member of the French Academy, Ernest Renan, 
Bays in his Life of Jesus (which work has had the honor 
of an auto-da-fe in Rome and caused Saint Ernest to 
be driven out of Heaven) : 

u Reflexion causes doubt to follow, and if the authors 
of the French Revolution, for example, could have beek 
previously convinced by meditations sufficiently long, all 
would have attained old age without having done any- 
thing. » 

We should be J)Ound for one another, for liberty is 
like the tree, which is the emblem of it; if to-day you 
cutoff one branch, to-morrow and the day after an other 
under the pretext that this branch will injure the other, 
and so on — there will be left at the end nothing but 
the trunk of a tree. So it is with Solidarity : each 
member physically and morally feels the pain of the 
other members. 

Very soon, when the Idea shall be spread over the 
world with the rapidity of lightning, the people may 
then say : " We are millions on the globe who have 
the Fame thought, and who will act in the same way 
on the Great Day. " 

The people should recognise no chiefs present or*to 
come. We have six years before us to prepare ourselves 
— to spread the Idea, discuss the questions without 
choosing any system, and prepare and organize them- 
selves as if they were starting to colonize deserted coun- 
tries, and procure everything necessary to this end 
such as cannons, balls and grapeshot, guns, bullets and 
small shot, agricultural implements and housebuilders 1 



— 38 — 

tools; wheat and grains, tubercles, flowers grains and 
medicines; shrubs of all kinds, cattle, pouUry, salt pro- 
visions, clothing, linen, boots and shoes; sell everything 
they cannot take with them and emplov the money to 
buy tents, mattrasses, horses and wagons to convey all 
the miserables, the infirm, the sick and maimed of the 
old society. 

That is the task. 

The people may then say to the valets and potentates 
of Europe : Concoct your schemes, attain the height of 
your desires, seize upon this fine Republic, lay your foot 
on its neck, put it in chain and impose upon it your 
"liberty" of the Press, your religious liberty. &c, as 
you are now doing in Mexico; do better, still, — no 
sham legality ! — make auto-da- fes of all that is proud, 
free and hates you; in six years from this, the twenty- 
fourth of February, one thousand eight hundred and 
seventy, the people will be with the people, and you 
shall have neither soldiers, workmen, nor executioners 
to obey your sanguinary orders ! 

But the people should not compromise their deliverance 
by their impatience, or calling tumultuous meetings 
where the police might interfere. These principles 
should be actively but peacefully spread, and the idea 
of emancipation printed in as many languages possible; 
comfort those who suffer, heal the sick, encourage the 
depressed and the weak-minded, rekindle the spirit of 
the lukewarm; try by all pacific means to get out of 
prisons and houses of detention all the unhappy beings 
branded by the laws of men, and receive and treat them 
as unhappy brothers, as we would see it done unto us. 

Right and Duty, Liberty, and each one for all and all 

ifor each one, should be the Code, the Gospel and the 

*;JBibJe of him who wishes the happiness of his fellow-crea- 

.ture ; such should be our device, and we ought to show 



— 39 



/S) 



the world that we know how to practise Liberty, Equa- 
lity and Fraternity towards all. 

Tiie peoples of antiquity worked with the aid of three 
powers — weight, common to man and beast; — 
musculation, common to both, and utilized to the utmost 
by man. either by the aid of tools or by the adjunction 
of certain species of animals ; and lastly, the wind, the 
best of primitive conquests of man, that which shows 
most conclusively his inductive power and the predomi- 
nance of his reflective faculties over the brutal instinct 
of conservation. 

The middle-age discovers two more powers — the 
expansion of gas and the terrestrial magnetism. That 
make five powers. In modern times there are two more 
discoveries — the elasticity of water steam and electric 
dynamic. 

Thus Humanity possess seven powers. 

Then after the discovery of the gratuitous motive power, 
the aerial navigation, $*c, the universal language shall 
follow ; and see what revolutions shall fatally be accom- 
plished ! 

And so shall we say, like Gay-Lussac before dying : 
14 Could I but take a countermark, and, mere spectator 
of things, live through curiosity !" 

That is the means which we propose to men of heart. 
Will it be responded to ? 

We hope and despair at the same time. 

If this plan is not a good one, give us another. But, 
for the People's sake ! do not go to sleep when the ship 
is running such perils, when wretchedness is so great ! 



One last word. The war which is going on at this 
moment between the North and the South will be lon- 
ger and more terrible than it is generally supposed. In 



— 40- 

our opinion, the European powers will make common 
cause with the South : all those who are interested in 
the maintenance of Slavery and backward ideas will 
join the partisans of Slavery. 

Time presses on— it is necessary that every man who 
can shoulder the musket should get into the ranks of 
the republican army : that those who are in Europe, in 
the ranks of the Southern army or in those of foreign 
armies should desert and join us, or else the only spot 
of land wherein we can Write or speak, freely will 
be invaded and annihilated by the enemies of Liberty* 

The enemy has its partisans here, and its mercenaries 
are in Mexico! There are the greatest dangers! 

The Republic is in peril ! Citizens, be on the look 
out ! Organize your battalions and do all that is possi 
ble to spread the Idea ! 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS • % 




JSN© 



